Tag: weebly comments

The first voice activated car driver was Dr. Foster (played by David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider back in the 1980s). The voice activation system in question was the Pontiac Trans Am, the Knight Industries Two Thousand (otherwise known as KITT), and was a fully-fledged AI that functioned as Dr. Foster’s partner in solving a crime. Fast forward to 2016, where the legendary Knight Rider is about to get an exciting reboot and where voice-activated driving is no longer just something out of a TV show or an overly active imagination. And ok, voice-activated driving assistance may not quite be ready to reach full sentience and help us stop crime, but there are a whole bunch of smart voice-activated systems out there that are helping us drive better.

For starters, there is a wide range of navigation apps on the market, like Waze, that help us ditch traditional sat nav devices while benefiting from crowdsourced information on traffic, accidents and more. And of course, voice plays a big part in all of this; but if that alone isn’t exciting enough, you will be pleased to know that you can now use Morgan Freeman’s voice on Waze, for all the iconic driving wisdom you might need. Another app to pay attention to is Google Maps Voice, which lets you navigate via voice commands through your Apple or Android phone. This means no more pulling over while driving in order to update your route (yay). The app also helps you find petrol stations, restaurants, and supermarkets on your way home.

And it’s not just apps that are getting smarter; cars are getting smarter and progressing closer to the goal of AI. BMW’s voice control system now lets you control various features of your car like climate control, your sound system, and of course navigation. And instead of typing in instructions you can just tell your car to take you home and it will. The exact system you get depends on your model of car, but Dragon Drive from the Sedan 7 series is arguably one of the best. Dragon Drive allows you to talk to your car conversationally and even let’s you interrupt so you don’t have to listen to long menus. Hopefully, systems like this will help to reduce the number of car accidents caused by texting (which currently make up roughly a quarter of all crashes in the US alone).

With increasingly hands-free technology, a voice is changing the way we drive. And though there are still issues with voice recognition, voice technologies are rapidly improving, with companies like Baidu reaching a reporting 96% accuracy level. There haven’t yet been many studies on the impact that hands-free is having on drivers. One study from a few years ago suggests that voice is no safer than text in terms of distraction. However, this was based on a small sample size of just over 40 individuals and was tested on older technologies with a much lower level of accuracy. As voice tech becomes more intuitive and more conversational it will likely make driving more convenient and comfortable while also making it safer.

Heyoya is a game-changing comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

For more information about Heyoya, or to start using Heyoya’s Receiver plan and start earning money today, click here.

It has been 110 years since the very first voice over was recorded by Reginald Fessendon, the first ever voice heard on radio. Over 20 years later, Looney Toons came to life along with Mickey Mouse and many other iconic cartoon characters. Walt Disney had the honor of introducing the first ever cartoon voice in 1928. And in the 30s the voice over industry began to expand rapidly with larger and larger numbers of animated films being produced. This led to the formation of actor’s guilds and the professionalization of the industry. In the 1940s the first legal TV ad was run. In the beginning, voice-overs were anonymous “in-between” jobs and remained very much behind the scenes. This remained the case for a long time, but in recent decades voice-overs have increased in popularity with the release of major cartoon blockbusters, and the world of voice-overs has come to the forefront of acting.

There is a long list of celebrities who have lent their voice to various cartoons; just think of James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons in the Lion King, or Edie Murphy in Shrek. And the list goes on. Over the years, voice-overs have transformed from behind the scenes odd jobs into a valuable marketing tool for the film industry. When new cartoon films come out, most audiences are looking out for which celebs will be involved. A case in point is the new movie Trolls with an all-star cast including Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, and Anna Kendrick. The wide range of well-known celebrities voicing films is a useful marketing tool to target not only children but also parents.

And while the status and wages associated with voice-overs have transformed over the years, something else has been happening in parallel. The big name voice actors and celebs remain rooted in the old work paradigm of agents and auditions, and much of the industry continues to work this way. However, for a lot of voice-over actors, the bold new frontier is the online market. The voice over market has expanded rapidly on online marketplaces like Fiverr to the point where you can basically find any voice you want for around 5 dollars (you might have to pay more for longer jobs or extras but this is still incredibly cheap).

The quality can be a bit hit and miss on major marketplaces offering such a wide range of skills for money. And in response to this, a number of voice over only marketplaces have been opening up. Voices.com is the largest online marketplace for voice-overs and provides a whole range of services including radio, cartoons, audiobooks, business and more. With a lot of online marketplaces, the focus is on speed and low-cost which means that quality often suffers. But today, a number of online marketplaces have opened up to ensure that the voices customers pay for are high quality. Voicebunny allows you to scroll through and select a voice over from a wide range of professional actors.

While voice-overs continue to merge and change, they remain a backbone of the way we communicate and entertain. Now more than ever, voice and voice-overs are critical not just for advertising, but also for education, communication, entertainment and more.

Heyoya is a game-changing comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

For more information about Heyoya, or to start using Heyoya’s Receiver plan and start earning money today, click here.

You’ve probably heard the term “digital health” but what does it actually mean, and what is including within it? Essentially, digital health is a field that marks the convergence of the digital revolution with new health technologies, healthcare, the genomic revolution and more. It is transforming the field of medicine in terms of the way we diagnose and treat different illnesses. It is empowering individuals to better understand and care for their own health and lives in a multiplicity of ways including wearables, apps, the IoT and more. In 2015 a total of $4.5B was invested in digital health as the industry expanded massively across the globe. There were also 187 different M&A deals in this field in 2015 alone.

Source: storyofdigitalhealth.com

Within this rapidly growing field, there has been an interesting emergence of voice-based digital health solutions. In some instances, smart sensors and machine learning are coming together to help diagnose voice disorders. The use of non-invasive wearable technology can actually identify vocal polyps (a painful condition that often affects singers). And this is just an initial example of the application of machine learning and wearables. In the future, the same technologies could potentially help to diagnose a wide range of conditions.

But as well as voice helping to do the obvious in identifying specific voice disorders, the combination of voice and technology may also have wider applications in the field of healthcare. Cutting edge technologies are already able to analyze the emotions of speech, opening up the possibility of using voice-driven analytics as a new big data tool to help determine the likelihood of elections or the overall mood of a city or nation. But beyond this, there is evidence that simply analyzing your voice in the correct way can reveal stress, depression and other health issues.

While there is no miracle cure to “hearing” health issues in your voice, keeping track of the way you speak and how your daily speech compares to a baseline could identify multiple health conditions and apparently even tell you if you are suffering from heart disease. This is the kind of technology that could easily be adapted to handheld devices or incorporated into voice-activated personal assistants such as Siri.

And as well as empowering patients with apps and easy to use devices, voice-based digital healthcare is also helping clinicians reach a greater degree of accuracy and better care for their patients. Easy to use software can help clinicians to streamline clinical language understanding and clinical speech recognition. There are now a plethora of voice-based productivity apps that can help with coordination, patient care, diagnostics and more.

It looks like voice will play a critical role in the future of digital health care. With voice analytics helping diagnose disorders and voice-activated software helping health providers improve the way they work, the future looks to be increasingly wireless and voice-based. And in addition, the move towards voice and digital means the future of big data in the voice arena is set to be enormous. All in all, voice has arrived and is changing the way we care for our minds and our bodies.

Heyoya is a game-changing comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

Voice-activated technologies apps and gadgets are taking the world by storm. So why is voice becoming so popular and what are the coolest new technologies out there? For one thing, gadgets, in general, are becoming ever more convenient and often convenience=hands free. Giving users the ability to take care of tasks and use apps without having to touch a smartphone or device gives people the freedom to do more while they are on the go. You aren’t allowed to text and drive, but you can voice activate your apps while driving and keeping your eyes firmly on the road.

A wireless world

With the launch of Apple’s iPhone 7, the world seems to be moving towards technologies that are smoother, sleeker and paradoxically both more and less connected; more connected because they allow you to do more with your time and your network, but less connected because they have less physical ports. The future (or at least the one Apple is pushing towards) eliminates the headphone jack and is slowly transitioning us to a wireless world. Samsung has been using wireless charging for years now, and let’s face it if we think of the science fiction visions of the future they are almost always wireless (just think about the complete absence of wires in Star Trek or Star Wars for example). In this new and exciting wireless world, voice and voice activation has become an essential tool.

Source: iphoneincanada.ca

Smart homes get a voice

Google has been working extensively on the next generation of smart home technology: a tiny device known as Google Home. It looks set to launch on October 4th and it is all about voice control. Overall, the product isn’t so different in terms of functionality to Siri, whom we all know and love. It works to give us voice control of our homes and can connect with other Google based devices like Nest. It has a lot in common with the sleek and formidable Amazon Echo, which has now been on the US market for about 2 years. Both are tiny, wifi connected and able to control all the appliances in your home through voice. And the Amazon Echo is about to launch in Europe in a few days. For now, there is no AI involved so users get all the functionality without the harrowing AI story of shows like Black Mirror’s White Christmas.

Have a chat with your motorbike

You probably heard of Night Rider, the 1980’s show with a talking car. Well, existing technologies are now one better than this, allowing you to talk with your motorbike (ok, not literally). The Skully smart helmet brings motorcycle riders an augmented reality experience with a blind-spot camera and heads-up display for greater safety and a better ride. And of course, the whole thing is completely voice controlled. And yes, the world of voice-activated cars is also continuing to evolve, bringing drivers better and better voice controlled activation, infotainment and more.

Voice transforms technology

As well as allowing us to move towards a vision of a hands-free world, where we can do everything and anything on the go, voice technologies are actually adding a personal element back into technologies, which are otherwise very impersonal. In addition to talking to your cars, helmets, homes and devices, users are increasingly talking to each other on bite-sized voice recordings via messaging services like Whatsapp and even through voice comments and reviews. Hearing another human across the bot filled and automated online world adds a welcome personal touch to the medium and also helps eliminate much of the ambiguity associated with text-based communications.

Heyoya is a game-changing comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

For more information about Heyoya, or to start using Heyoya’s Receiver plan and start earning money today, click here.

It’s surprising how many time businesses in 2016 fail to bring together the correct components to build a comprehensive marketing strategy. The world today is still full of companies that build and fall in love with magical technologies without giving enough thought to how they will bring those technologies to customers. Similarly, there are still too many companies out there that see marketing as a potentially dispensable part of their business strategy to be added on only after the rest is done and dusted. So, what can you do to build the kind of marketing strategy needed to get your business to the top?

Bottom up research

The bottom line is, to be successful you cannot use the old philosophy, “if you build it they will come”, and in fact, marketing always needs to come first and foremost. The best businesses begin with bottom-up research (Professor Danny Warshay of Brown & Yale has a whole bunch of amazing talks on this). This means starting with your customers and really working to listen and understand their needs. This research is the number 1 step of any good marketers toolkit because you cannot proceed further without a base of knowledge and understanding. As well researching and speaking to your potential customers and understanding their behaviors, it is important to get a clear understanding of the industry you are entering, the current solutions and your competition.

Set reasonable goals

Are you psyched up after doing some wonderful research, have you built an in-depth understanding of your user base? Are you ready to charge into some marketing? Hold on just a second; it is time to step back and set some realistic goals. What are you actually aiming towards? What is a conservative estimate? What’s an optimistic estimate? It’s ok if you don’t meet each of your goals word for word in exactly the timeline you’ve set out, but it is important to have something to reach towards.

Find the right marketing mix

Once you have your research and goals in place, it is important to find the right marketing mix for your business. Sadly there are no simple answers here, so it is really a question of finding the tailor-made solution that works best for you. It might be that content campaigns are your best friend, or perhaps advertising banners on specific websites are the only real way to engage your target audience. Then again, maybe a few key strategic partners can get you more bang for your buck. There is probably no single channel that will meet all your goals, so the real question here is how to strike the right balance. Part of this will come through intuition and logic, but part will likely have some element of a trial and error.

Be flexible

Your customers and your industry will change over time. New competitors will enter the market and old ones will pivot or disappear. There are no static processes. You will need to keep your eye on the constant state of flux and quite possibly redo parts of your research or change your overall goals. At a certain point, you tried and tested marketing mix may no longer work as new technologies and ideas hit the market. In order to stay on top of things, you will need to stay agile and keep a close eye on industry changes. And don’t be afraid to try new tools and new technologies.

Heyoya is a unique comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

If you have an online blog or website, you likely already have some sort of comments platform where readers can write their thoughts and opinions. But having a comments section somewhere down at the bottom of your blog is not enough. It’s time to leverage your comments section because it is actually one of the most important parts of your blog. Here are a few reasons why it’s so important and a few ideas for how to get the maximum from your readers.

Comments keep users on your blog for longer

There’s nothing like a few juicy comments to retain your reader’s attention and keep people on your site for longer. However good your blog is, if there is no debate around it, it is likely people who visit your site will simply leave once they’ve read the blog (or section of the blog) that interests them. An active comments section creates interest and means readers are more likely to convert and more likely to click related links to ads and content. A great way to make sure your comment section kicks off to a good start is to write the first comment yourself. Make sure that it is meaningful and more than just a handful of words. Alternatively, you can include a call to action at the bottom of your blog post. This can be something very simple, like asking your readers directly to write their opinions in your comment section.

Comments make things social

Having an active comments section where users frequently talk to each other is essential to creating a blog that is both dynamic and social. With enough activity on your blog, you also increase the backlinks to other websites and by doing so improve your SEO. So ultimately, comments help drive traffic to your blog and are therefore indispensable. If you are having trouble getting a conversation rolling and are stuck with a few isolated comments, you can start by replying to your user comments. The best approach is a simple one, so trying something personal and honest is a great start. A good approach might just be to thank them for commenting and ask a short question that relates to their comment.

There is a comment revolution in progress

If you’ve been on the internet any time recently you are probably all too familiar with a world of comments that is almost exclusively text-based. Ok, now and again a handful of emojis will appear, and of course, sometimes, entire comment streams will be based purely on memes (there are even entire wiki how’s explaining how best to use memes). But still, overall, comment platforms remain surprisingly traditional. However, things are finally starting to change and a number of comment widgets and platforms have recently appeared that go beyond text and venture into the worlds of images, videos, and even voice. A great way to truly leverage your comments section is to do something unique with it.

Heyoya is a unique comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.